Colonel Glover's Fishermen Leaving Marblehead for Cambridge, 1775

J.O.J. Frost was a late-19th century Romantic fully caught up in the historical fervor inspired by the ending of the Civil War and the Centennial of the Declaration of Independence and in full bloom during the 1920s as the Colonial Revival. He expressed feelings of patriotism and pride in his community by creating this image of a local war hero and his troops. Revolutionary War General John Glover commanded the Fourteenth Continental, a company comprised almost entirely of fishermen from the coastal Massachusetts town of Marblehead. One historian referred to this company as "the first truly amphibious regiment in the annals of warfare." In Frost's scene, Glover and his men are depicted leaving the streets of their hometown as they march for Washington's camp at Cambridge in June 1775. This painting was part of Frost's roadside museum designed to give visitors to Marblehead a sense of its local history.